Boy & the World (2013)

These FREE screenings are part of MOXIE FLIX, a monthly series focusing on essential films for kids to see before they turn 13.

Film Summary: Cuca’s cozy rural life is shattered when his father leaves for the city, prompting him to embark on a quest to reunite his family. The young boy’s journey unfolds like a tapestry, the animation taking on greater complexity as his small world expands. Entering civilization, industrial landscapes are inhabited by animal-machines, with barrios of decoupage streets and shop windows, and flashing neon advertisements that illuminate the night. The story depicts a clash between village and city, hand crafted and mechanized, rich and poor - and throughout the tumult, the heart and soul of the people beats on as a song. The film’s music is on equal footing with the stunning visuals, a soundscape of pan-flute, samba, and Brazilian hip-hop mixing with the whirling carnival colors and exploding fireworks.

"Abreu handcrafted his images, and the imagination from which those images spring is astonishingly fertile."

- Soren Anderson, Seattle Times

"It's like some lost globally conscious colorfest from the 1970s, reinvented with Mr. Abreu's verve."

- Nicolas Rapold, New York Times

"The little boy here... is one of the most distinctive and adorable animated characters you'll ever come across, and his introduction to "the world out there" is a moving revelation indeed."

- Miriam Di Nunzio, Chicago Sun-Times

"Boy and the World is dazzlingly colorful and alive, often resembling a more elaborate version of the kind of childlike drawings you probably have stuck to your refrigerator door right now."

- Christy Lemire. RogerEbert.com

"A simple, universal parable played out in boldly imaginative (though not particularly high-tech) design terms, Brazilian animator Ale Abreu's second feature, The Boy and the World, is an enchanting visual treat"